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July 19, 2014

If you're like me you hit the internet when you need some info. If you Google Fahey you're going to end up on JohnFahey.com sooner than later. The site is packed with info. It's a treasure. Thing is, JohnFahey.com is a hosted site, it's not a free blog like mine, it costs some money. The other day the site went down for a day and you know that can get a few people panicked.

And who the heck runs this site? Well, Melissa Stephenson, that's who. She bought the domain in 1995 and in 1999 arranged to include the impressive International Fahey Committee content as it was developed.

Melissa has been the official webmaster all along. The site recently incurred an unexpected $160 maintenance expense and I think she would certainly appreciate a couple bucks for the John Fahey cause. We are looking to raise a mere $160 here folks. Also, if in the event donations surpass the $160 mark Melissa will return the money, most recent donation first and then backwards from there, and we will take down the donation link.

Malcolm Kirton (IFC member!) has plans to redesign the site in the next year or so and donors will have their names listed on a sponsors page!

So please consider clicking the button and contributing anything, no amount is too small! You don't have to have a PayPal account to give. The PayPal link goes directly to Melissa.

July 7, 2014

VDSQ 2014
As the author of Dance of Death: The Life of John Fahey, Steve Lowenthal's name has undoubtedly become familiar to many Delta Slider readers in 2014. But Lowenthal's involvement with the American Primitive scene goes even deeper. For several years, he's been curating the Vin Du Select Qualitite (VDSQ) label, a limited-run, vinyl-only series. The concept is simple -- each VDSQ release features two sides of solo acoustic guitar work from a single player. The latest batch of wax is very much worth your time.

First up is Anthony Pasquarosa, a western Massachusetts guitarist who has recorded previously under the name Crystalline Roses. He's new to me, but on the strength of these two sides of gorgeous 12-string excursions, I hope to hear more soon. Pasquarosa's songs weave and wind beautifully, reaching celestial heights that will have you reaching for comparisons to the two Bashos (Robbie and Steffen). Not sure if Anthony's tongue is slightly in cheek when he writes that he uses the guitar "is my communicatory device to the extraterrestrial worlds and is used in the unlocking of interior keys." But the music is good enough that I'll take him at his word.

Sir Richard Bishop is a lifelong member of the American underground music scene, having co-founded the unfathomably eclectic, unclassifiable and adventurous Sun City Girls back in the early 1980s. As a solo artist, he's grabbed ingredients from gypsy jazz, psychedelia, Middle Eastern music and noise (to name just a few genres) and mixed them into a heady, consistently intoxicating brew. The globetrotting Sir Richard recorded his contribution to the VDSQ series, a three-part suite entitled Hypostasis, in Genthod, Switzerland (on a borrowed guitar, no less!). He sounds right at home though, crafting an absorbing, adventurous LP. Rarely straying from a mysterious, minor-key vibe, Hypostasis is another winner from a masterful, rarely disappointing musician.

Finally, we have Bill Orcutt's VDSQ LP. It's by far the most challenging of the three records discussed here -- at times it sounds as if the guitarist is attempting to destroy his instrument. But give it a spin or two and its myriad pleasures will begin to reveal themselves. In the 1990s, Orcutt led the delightfully named Harry Pussy, a wild and wooly band that skronked and screeched in a way that hadn't been heard before and hasn't been heard since. In recent years, Orcutt has concentrated on solo, 4-string guitar work, building up a thrillingly thorny catalogue. His VDSQ LP may be the best intro to his work that I've heard, abstract and at times atonal, but with dazzling runs galore and beautiful melodies occasionally emerging out of the cacophony. Orcutt's devilish and surreal sense of humor is appreciated as well; he sets the scene for one song by writing: "Imagine a white trash Basement Tapes and all the ghosts are drunk." Exactly.

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This delta had the very pronounced habit, during certain dry seasons, of sliding. In order to compensate for the encroachments of numerous escarpments, which were at this time always encroaching upon everyone, due to the sliding of the delta. Hymns were composed, which were sung to various gods of the delta and the escarpments. In time, the escarpments ceased to encroach, but the delta continued to slide, which was quite naturally no longer dangerous to the local volk. These hymns continued to be sung altho their aetology was long forgotten. Later they were written down in compensium of sliding delta hymns which were so named. - Fahey, Dance of Death liner notes.